Nevermore
by SlowDripLizard
Summary: The Regents succeed in repairing the damage to the Warehouse caused by Sykes' bomb, but it would appear H.G.'s death is irreversible. Myka disagrees. Abandoning the Warehouse, she sets out to bring Helena back. Before long, she finds herself caught up in something far bigger than she could've imagined. Rated M for future chapters. Set immediately after Emily Lake/Stand.
1. Chapter 1

**Right. This is my first attempt at fanfiction and something I've been thinking about and planning for FAR too long, and it's sort of grown way out of proportion and into a massively long and complex narrative. Not sure if I'm over-thinking it a bit and getting too in-depth, but it might take a while to get going properly. Hope you can bear with me :) Any and all feedback would be hugely appreciated. **

_"Deep into that darkness peering, _

_long I stood there, wondering, fearing,_

_Doubting, dreaming dreams _

_no mortals ever dared to dream before"_

_E.A. Poe, 'The Raven'_

Myka Bering sat in the back seat of the car, gazing out of the window with unseeing eyes. There was a complete stillness to her posture, her left elbow propped up against the car door, fingers frozen half an inch away from her cheek and her slightly parted lips. The world was crumbling all around her, and had she been inclined to consider the matter, she would have sworn the South Dakota landscape on the other side of the glass was speeding away from her, rather than the car speeding through it. As it was, a numbingly dark cloud had descended over her mind, leaving her lost and adrift in the far reaching depths of her thoughts. They came one by one and flickered into nothingness, leaving no light.

'Mykes!' Pete's voice resolved itself into a coherent message, and there was an impatience to it that clearly suggested this wasn't the first time he'd been trying to get her attention. She turned to him, her expression unchanged. 'Come on,' he stated simply.

She saw him get out of the car and only then realised that they were no longer in motion. Distantly, as if through no will of her own, she watched her fingers open the car door and before she knew what was happening, she was entering the B&B, following Artie through the corridor. Claudia and Leena were there, and Myka could see them jumping up from their seats at the sight of her, Artie and Pete; she could see their expressions but they left no imprint on her conscious mind. She sank into a chair and resumed a position not dissimilar from the one she had maintained in the car. Except there was no window to stare out of now, to allow her the luxury of being seemingly distracted, so she simply fixed her eyes on the carpet. Voices seemed to be coming from every direction, shattering against the newfound barriers surrounding her thoughts. Until a name, spoken by Artie in the midst of words so devoid of meaning, found its way into her brain and, in turn, tore down the walls in her mind.

'H.G.'

She never got the opportunity to ask her which she preferred, H.G. or Helena.

The pattern of the carpet blurred out of focus as Myka's eyes filled with tears. Before she had a chance to try to stop them rolling down her cheeks, another voice, this time speaking directly to her from the depths of her mind, rang unbidden in her ears, as if heard and not remembered.

_'__This was the only way I could think to save you.'_

H.G.'s words reverberated through her brain for what could have easily been several centuries, until a commotion in the room finally startled her scattered mind into connecting with reality.

Mrs Frederic was there, looking alarmed at being hugged by Claudia, and Adwin Kosan was standing next to them, talking.

'...a fail-safe mechanism, which has most fortunately allowed us to return the Warehouse into the state it had been in before the explosion took place. Although the Regents are hopeful that the Warehouse will prove to be stable and that nothing will be amiss, it is our recommendation that all of you should remain here until tomorrow, by which time any possible inconsistencies will have balanced themselves.'

'What about Helena?' said Myka, her own voice sounding alien to her. A fire had suddenly blazed within her, blinding her to the startled looks of her friends, all of whom seemed to have forgotten she was there.

Mr Kosan sighed, grasping the back of an empty chair with both of his hands.

'I'm afraid saving Miss Wells was beyond the power of the Regents,' he said after a slight pause. 'You see, the mechanism we used to restore the Warehouse is effective only on non-organic matter, which is to say, the building and the artifacts within it. However unfortunate we regard Miss Wells' death to be, especially in the light of her sacrifice...'

'Bullshit,' Myka cut in, feeling no control over her own words. 'You can save hundreds of years' worth of objects but you can't save _her_?'

'Agent Bering...' began Mrs Frederic, the unusually gentle note in her voice lost in Myka's fury.

'No,' she said sharply, springing up to her feet. Her anger set her blood ablaze, coursing through her, burning away the numbness in her mind and restoring its usual clarity. The clockwork of her brain ground back into action in an almost physically perceptible way. She could feel the tension in the room as all eyes focused on her, shocked by her sudden outburst. The stunned silence served only to fuel her fury further, and she held onto her anger for dear life. For if she allowed all of her other emotions to wash over her, she would surely die.

'You got what you wanted,' she said, facing Mr Kosan. 'Sykes is gone, the Warehouse is back and the Regents are safe. You're expecting us to carry on as if nothing ever happened, as if everything's back to normal, except it isn't. H.G is _dead_, she gave her life for the Warehouse, for us...' she paused, pushing the memory of Helena's tearful smile out of her mind for the time being. 'And you won't even _try_ to save her.'

Mr Kosan tore his gaze away from his own hands and fixed her with a look that carried no small amount of silent warning.

'The safety of the Warehouse must take precedence over all other matters. We are lucky to have been able to repair as much damage as we have, and trust me, Agent Bering, the price of it was not one we paid lightly. Keeping the Warehouse from harm is our priority...'

'And H.G. is what, collateral damage?' Myka interrupted, piercing him with her gaze. They were facing each other now, motionless.

'Mykes, listen,' Pete began gently, finally breaking the utter stillness of the room and making as if to reach out for her arm. She pushed him away with a mere look.

'No,' she said, noting absently how her own voice was rising now. 'Don't try to placate me, Pete. Don't you see what's happening?'

The lack of understanding in her partner's face didn't surprise her. She ignored the worried look in his eyes that would have otherwise warned her she might be going too far.

'This is a neat, no loose ends happy ending for the Regents, _isn't it_?' She turned a look of furious accusation back at Mr Kosan. 'H.G. had been a liability for you, hadn't she? Her knowledge and skills were useful to you, but just as useful to anyone else. It's twice now that she's been used as a weapon against the Warehouse, even after having her mind and body separated. It would have been far too great a risk to keep her alive, imprisoned, and now that she sacrificed herself for the Warehouse, _you_ don't have to worry about what to do with her next. Don't you _see_?' she repeated, with a profound feeling of stating the obvious. Her eyes met Pete's again. 'It's _convenient_ for the Regents that she's dead.'

Her voice broke on the last word and she turned away, absently bringing her hand up to her forehead. She could feel her eyes burning, even as the blaze of fury died down inside her, threatening to break her resolve and allow the pain of losing Helena into the centre of her consciousness. After a moment, Mr Kosan spoke, in that infuriatingly level tone.

'It is as clear as it is understandable that today's events have deeply upset you, Agent Bering. Rest assured that it is a matter of deep regret for the Regents that Miss Wells could not be saved along with the Warehouse. I trust you will understand this once your feelings subside.' Ignoring the bitter bark of laughter that escaped Myka's lips, he straightened up and took a few steps towards the door. 'To the rest of you, I wish you a good night.'

And with that, he was gone. Mrs Frederic's voice filled the uncomfortable silence that had followed the door snapping shut behind the Regent.

'As Mr Kosan has said, the Warehouse will be attended to by the Regents tonight, so you are not required to be present until tomorrow. Agent Bering... I suggest you take a day off.'

Even if Myka had any inclination to reply, by the time she turned around to face the room again, Mrs Frederic was no longer there.

Even without looking up at her friends' faces, she could sense they were all searching for their next words. She started towards the door before any of them could find their voice. She didn't care what any of them had to say to her, unless it involved some sort of miraculous revelation that would bring Helena back. And Myka knew none of them had the power to do that.

She reached the bottom of the staircase by the time Pete caught up with her.

'We should talk,' he said, looking at her as if he fully expected her to attack him. She opened her mouth to speak but before she had the chance to refuse, he went on. 'I'm not about to say that what you said to Kosan wasn't true, I don't know. But Myka, you're hitting your head against a brick wall here. You're not going to gain anything, you can only lose.'

'So what,' Myka said, resting her hand against the banister, as if being in the security of physical balance could restore some peace to her shattered mind. 'Was I supposed to just keep my mouth shut when he calmly told us the Regents decided to kill Helena?'

'They didn't kill her, Mykes! Think about it.'

'I have thought about it.'

'But-'

'Do you really think there is anything else I've been able to think about since? I've thought about it. The Regents always find a way out, they always have back up plans we don't know a damned thing about. That's what they're here for. They've _always_ come up with something, some new Warehouse trick. And all of a sudden, the one and only thing they fail to figure out is to how to save H.G. along with the Warehouse. Don't you think it's the least bit odd that someone they saw as a threat is the one person they can't even try to save?'

'You don't know that they haven't tried,' Pete replied, feeling distinctly odd in the role of being the reasonable one. It was usually Myka's job to talk sense into him, not the other way around. 'And anyway, even if that was true, that still doesn't mean they killed her.'

'They let her die and left her dead,' Myka flared up. 'That's as good as killing her.'

'She chose to die, Myka,' he said, adopting a gentler tone. 'You were there-'

He stopped talking as Myka shook her head and sank down to sit on the bottom step. By the time he joined her, her head was between her knees, hands clenching into fists as she wound them into her hair.

'Look, I hear what you're saying,' Pete started again, wondering if his partner was even listening to him at this point. 'And you might be right, maybe they really have done nothing to save H.G. But Kosan might as well be telling the truth, look at what they had to deal with – the whole friggin' Warehouse. When we left there a couple of hours ago it was just a big hole in the ground, that's alotta crazy stuff to bring back. Maybe they just... ran out of juice.'

'We're talking about a person's _life_, Pete,' Myka said, straightening up. Glistening lines of tears shone on her cheeks. 'It should be worth more than a ton of old junk. _She_ was worth more.'

Pete sighed. _Ton of old junk_? He never anticipated having the experience of interacting with a Myka who saw the objective of her job as anything less than utterly, vitally imperative.

'Maybe it just doesn't work like that,' he said quietly, not sure what to expect. Myka just shook her hair back and buried her face in her hands. He just doesn't get it, she thought absently. She couldn't bring herself to care enough to try and explain it to him. She spent half her life explaining things to him, she thought bitterly, aware on some level that she would never phrase it like this in a better state of mind. Her entire being was so consumed by the whirlwind of emotions that raged within her that it was all she could do to prevent herself screaming out, breaking something, punching Pete, something, anything that would relieve at least a portion of the anger and the pain. Ultimately, though, she knew nothing could get rid of it.

'Whether they could or couldn't save H.G., you getting in trouble with the Regents isn't going to bring her back,' Pete tried again. She wished he would just leave her alone. 'And... Like I said, she chose to die.'

'Only because we were all going to die in the explosion anyway,' Myka replied exasperatedly, wondering why she even bothered.

'No, I'm talking about earlier, back in the woods. When I was meant to destroy the Janus Coin, remember?'

_How could I forget_, Myka thought, but managed to bite back the words. The decision to destroy the part of Helena that was stored in the Coin was so sudden and so unexpected, Myka had a mercifully short time to process it. She never would've agreed to it otherwise, but H.G.'s insistence broke her resolve. Just as she couldn't argue with the inventor when she made her decision, she couldn't argue with Pete now. Helena did choose to die. But that doesn't mean she wanted to.

'She was sacrificing herself. She didn't actually want to die, she was just trying to protect us.' _Protect me, _came an unbidden thought that Myka quickly pushed aside. 'Had there been other options, had we thought more about it, she wouldn't need to and wouldn't want to. And anyway, she wasn't even a whole person then. She was in the Regent prison and her consciousness was all she had, while her body was off somewhere teaching English and feeding cats.' Myka was positively spitting her words out. 'Would _you_ want to live like that? With nothing but your own thoughts, _again?_' She thought of all the time, the many long years H.G. had spent encased in bronze. With the constant dwelling on memories of her daughter, with no one, nothing for company but her own pain and growing bitterness. She thought of the desperate state it had driven H.G. into, and could only imagine why H.G. had been so quick to agree to the Janus coin being destroyed. No one should have to go through the mental torture H.G. had endured while in bronze, and Myka didn't blame her for wanting to avoid having to repeat the cycle as a suspended consciousness in the Regent prison. H.G. might have even been afraid. Afraid of what she'd do this time if allowed to dwell on her past again, for far too long and with nothing to distract her.

Her anger had subsided a little by now, allowing her to keep the rest of her thoughts to herself. How maybe if Pete hadn't been so hard on H.G., if not for the spite and the name calling, Helena wouldn't have been so determined to clear her name and prove herself to be a good person through sacrificing her life.

'But at least you know she was ready,' Pete suggested tentatively, and Myka wondered briefly if the thought had crossed his mind too, and now coloured his words with a tone of pleading guilt. 'At least maybe it was easier for her to give up her life in the Warehouse, she's already decided to do it once.'

'But she'd only just got her body back-'

'Yes, and for how long? And what was going to happen next? You're the one who said H.G. was dangerous to the Regents. Even if they believed she wasn't going to try and blow up the planet again, someone else, like _Sykes_ for instance, could use her against us. She sure as hell realised that too.'

When Myka didn't reply, he pressed his advantage.

'I know I wasn't always... great... towards her. You knew her better than I did, better than any of us – you're the only one that saw there was good inside her. Maybe I judged her too quickly, I should've given her a chance, but you know, there was that whole thing about destroying the world and all...' He felt Myka's burning stare and the pace of his words quickened, back on track. 'But far as I can see, dying for someone you care about ain't the worst way to go. At least she went out on her own terms, that's more than most of us will get. I don't know about you, but I'd rather die for you, or Claudia, or Amanda, than choke to death on a burrito or get whammied into something stupid. Which is probably what will happen.'

Myka looked up at him, and although she didn't smile, there wasn't as much anger and hostility in her eyes anymore. Aiming to end on a positive note and avoid making things worse again, he stood up.

'I'm sorry, Mykes. I know it hurts, and it sure as hell ain't fair. All I'm saying is, it isn't as bad as it coulda been. And don't you get your ass fired for mouthing off to Kosan, it won't make things better for anyone.'

Under any different circumstances, Myka would've laughed at the idea of Pete telling her to behave. As it was, she stood up as well and gave him a brief hug, trying and failing to hide her impatience.

'Thanks, Pete,' she said quietly, grateful to be only a flight of stairs away from finally being alone – much as the thought of having to face the agony within her filled her with apprehension.

'You got it, partner.'

Myka turned to go, and was already making her way up the stairs when Pete spoke again.

'And Myka… Don't get me wrong or anything, but maybe think about whether she'd want to still be here… or whether it's really that you need her to.'


	2. Chapter 2

The night that had followed was one of the darkest in Claudia's life. And that was saying something, all things considered. For a short life it might have been so far, it couldn't be said it hadn't already been tainted by grief, despair and loneliness such as most people never experience in the many combined decades of existence.

Many weeks later, when she'd be able to look back on that night without a stab of pain in her heart, she would see clear divides between the different stages her consciousness had split it into.

The utter numbness and disbelief, so much like Myka's loss not only for words, but simply for thoughts, during the car ride from where the Warehouse used to be to the B&B – though Claudia, of course, would never know of this symmetry between them.

_Steve is gone_, stuck on repeat in her mind came next. Like a broken record, her thoughts had hit a block and circled, seemingly endlessly, around those three words so short, yet heavy enough to crush her heart and mind alike.

Until finally, the meaning behind the fateful words sank in. And it was as if a wound had suddenly been slashed through her mental defences, as through the very flesh of her body, scorching a valley of agony in their wake, pain of such force that words had little to no power to express a fraction of it. She sat in her bed, with her head between her knees and her hands clenched into fists in her hair, as though trying to contain the pain she knew was limitless.

_The Metronome_ she thought over and over, willing herself to focus on the object now standing on her bedside table. The thought of it brought hope, and hope was something she desperately needed. Her grief was not so easily kept at bay, though. Memories of Steve kept pushing to the front of her mind, bringing more tears to her eyes as image after image of the moments they had shared in a different, happier time flooded her senses. _The Metronome_. _All is not lost. I'll bring him back. _

Eventually, she stood up and began pacing around her room, wiping the tears from her face. This was pointless. What use was there in reliving the past in her mind when the future held so much more. Her future, the future that had Steve in it, the future with him back amongst the living, back at Claudia's side. She needed to pull herself together and start planning on how to bring it about.

Her gaze fell onto the Metronome again, placed right next to a framed photograph of her and Steve in Civil War re-enactment getups. Reaching out to pick up the photo and look at it closer, she smiled despite herself, as a familiar feeling of defiant determination overcame her. The Regents may have stopped the Warehouse from being destroyed, they may have reversed an explosion, they may have averted a global catastrophe. But they weren't going to stop Claudia Donovan.

They're sure to try though. They're sure to tell her what she's planning on doing is dangerous, that the Warehouse and its agents are there to contain artifacts, not use them. They're likely to point out that the last man to use the Metronome was an evil villain trying to destroy everything they stand for. That using the Metronome, or any artifact, for her own gain goes against the principles of what she signed up for by being involved in the Warehouse, and against Steve's own principles. But she'd do it regardless. She'd do it for Steve's sake, not her own. He deserved to live, and after all he had given to the Warehouse, it was only right that the Warehouse should give something back.

She sat on the bed again, still staring at the photograph in her hands. In her entire life she'd never felt so lonely. Artie was still there, so were Myka and Pete, and even Mrs Frederic… Logically, she knew she wasn't alone. But somehow, with Steve gone, she felt worse than she had back at the institution, worse than ever. Perhaps it was because back then, she hadn't known what it's like to be close to someone. To have someone who's always there and who understands, and whom she can trust unconditionally. Steve had taught her what it meant to be truly friends with someone, and made her understand that she didn't have to go through life alone. With him gone, though… Losing someone she loved was infinitely more painful than never having loved at all. She closed her eyes. She _was_ doing it for Steve… right?

A door closed somewhere in the house and startled her out of her thoughts, for the first time since she came upstairs. Her eyes snapped open as she heard a muffled sob from upstairs.

_Of course… Myka. _Too lost in thoughts of Steve and the Metronome, she had inadvertently put Myka out of her mind. Not that there was anything remotely forgettable about the exchange between the agent and Mr Kosan. 'Insubordination' and 'questioning her superiors' were two things Claudia would've never associated with Myka Bering, the calm, controlled professional. And yet Myka's outburst had brought Claudia much more than mere surprise and astonishment. She never would have thought that anything could have penetrated through her grief for Steve, but watching Myka state her point to the Regent, Claudia had felt momentarily transported into the older woman's world. And it had been a place as dark and desolate as her own mind.

She felt almost guilty, having the Metronome and the slight glimmer of hope it indicated. Claudia may no longer have the person she loved, but at least she had something to hold on to, something she could do to change Steve's fate. Myka had nothing. H.G. was gone, and from what Mr Kosan had said, there was nothing that could be done to change that. _Nothing_. Such an ironic word, for despite its meaning, it held so much. She thought of Myka, alone in her room, and wondered whether the older agent's thoughts had run the same course, and whether Myka would hold it against her somehow that for Claudia, for Steve, all was not lost. _There's nothing we could do, not even with the Metronome_, she thought, growing increasingly lost and confused among the many images and feelings assaulting her mind.

She shook her head, as if that would somehow clear it. She was being ridiculous; of course Myka wouldn't be angry with her. The more she thought of the agent, the more she found herself wishing for her company. It's Myka she'd have gone to hoping to confide and find some comfort either way, but the knowledge that Myka had lost someone dear to her as well had made her certain that she's the only one that could ever understand what she was going through. Maybe Myka could use the company, too.

Claudia was at Myka's door before she fully processed what she was doing. The photograph of her and Steve was still clutched in her hand. She knocked, and felt a bolt of panic shooting through her. _What in the name of everything that's holy was I frakking thinking? _She could her own blood pulsing in her ears as her thoughts raced ahead of her. What on earth was she going to say to Myka, what could she possibly say to make the other woman feel better?

Perhaps the same thing had occurred to agent Bering, for the door remained unanswered. Claudia knocked once more, despite herself, and when she found no sign of life on the other side, she gave in and returned to her own room, no less confused than she was before. With mixed feelings of misplaced relief and pity for Myka, who apparently was in too much pain to talk to anyone, Claudia returned to her bed and lay down on her side, eyes fixed on the Metronome.

_Steve would've known the right thing to say. _


	3. Chapter 3

As Claudia made her way down the stairs, each step she took was careful and measured, as if she was expecting to be attacked at any given moment and preparing to fight back. She was halfway down when she heard the unmistakable sound of Artie's quick, shuffling footsteps, accompanied as usual by a healthy measure of mumbled complaints from Artie himself. She clenched her jaw involuntarily as he walked the length of the corridor below her without looking up, busy rummaging in his bag. Only once the door had closed behind him did she exhale in an effort to relax.

It's not that she didn't want to see him as such. She didn't want to see anyone much, truth be told. She made up her mind about the Metronome and knew for a fact that the other agents would try to change her mind. Not that any of them had the slightest chance of succeeding. Once Claudia Donovan put her mind to something, there was no stopping her. A part of her took a certain kind of pride in her defiance. Still, she'd rather not have to argue her point with anyone. Time was something she couldn't afford to waste.

She could hear voices coming from the parlour and recognised them as Pete's and Jane's. As the Regent was one of the last people on earth she wanted to see – or more to the point, argue with – right now, she descended the remainder of the stairs as quietly as she could and made for the front door, intending to sneak out unnoticed. There was a chance – just the slightest possibility of a chance – that Myka might understand, and not try to dissuade her from her plan to bring Steve back. She might even be of some help. Assuming Myka must have left for the Warehouse early, Claudia thought to meet her there, hopefully without Artie complicating the situation.

Just as she was about to reach for the doorknob, Jane's voice drifted towards her again.

'I'd also like to speak to agent Bering,' she was saying. 'Is she still here?'

'Still in bed, I think,' Pete replied, causing Claudia to retrace her steps back down the corridor. She stopped in the doorway to the parlour and leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed defensively over her chest, mercifully unnoticed by either Jane or Pete.

Pete's expression turned to one of concern.

'Why,' he said, 'is she in trouble or something? With Kosan?'

Jane heaved a deep sigh.

'No, or not yet, at least. I mean to warn her, actually, against pushing the Regents any further. I understand she's likely very upset right now, but she mustn't let it show the way she did last night.'

'You can't expect her to-'

'Not me, Pete. Like I said, I understand. But some of the other Regents may consider her to be insubordinate, should she allow herself any more outbursts like that.'

'I thought as much,' Pete nodded. 'We spoke last night, I think I might've calmed her down a bit. I've got to ask though… Is there really nothing the Regents could do? You know, to save H.G.?'

Jane stood up from her seat at the table and took a couple of steps towards the window, her gaze fixed on the trees outside.

'I'm afraid Helena is gone. There is nothing anyone could do for her now.'

Claudia shut her eyes momentarily, holding back the tears she hadn't seen coming. She almost missed Pete's next sentence.

'Myka thinks the Regents don't want to bring her back in case she goes all crazy on us again.'

'A reasonable assumption,' Jane said, turning to face Pete. 'But do you really think that given the chance, I wouldn't have tried to avoid or reverse her death? She sacrificed herself to save _you_, for God's sake.'

Claudia hadn't thought of that. She still hadn't gotten used to the fact that Jane the Regent was Pete's mother.

'So just to make things clear,' Pete said after a moment, 'H.G.'s dead and that's that. There's no going back, no Warehousey trick to un-dead her, and there was no other way to save the Warehouse.'

Jane frowned in silence for what seemed like an eternity.

'You know as well as I do, and as well as Myka does, that there is always – _always_ – a downside. This time it was Helena's life, and believe me when I tell you how heavily this weighs on my mind. We had no other choice, short of allowing the entire Warehouse to be destroyed, and that was never an option. Helena's death must, unfortunately, be considered the price to be paid for restoring the Warehouse. Painful and regrettable as it may be, we're all agents of the Warehouse, as Helena had once been, and if there is one thing we must never lose sight of, it's that the safety of the Warehouse and the artifacts within it is our top priority.'

Pete nodded, apparently convinced. Claudia however couldn't help frowning her disdain at how beneath the sentimental praise of H.G.'s noble sacrifice and the self-righteous claims of having chosen the lesser of two evils, there seemed to be no real conviction behind the words of both Jane and Kosan. Jane's talk of regret and priorities, Kosan's polite yet unemotional explanation of fail-safe mechanisms and non-organic matter… _It's all well and good for them, _she thought. _They didn't lose someone they loved. _Claudia would rather have lost the Warehouse but still have Steve by her side, and she was prepared to bet anything that Myka too would choose H.G.'s life over the 'safety of the Warehouse and the artifacts within it'. As if to fuel the young woman's bitterness and rising anger, Jane added,

'What's done is done. We have sustained many losses, but what we need to do now is look forward. There is much work to be done to make sure no lasting damage has been done to the Warehouse, and dwelling on what was and what could have been is not going to do anyone any good.'

Suddenly, Claudia found herself looking directly into Jane's eyes, as the Regent turned abruptly to face her. _Nice way to make a point_, the younger woman thought as she made a conscious effort to hold the eye contact in order to let Jane know she wasn't to be so easily swayed from her plan of saving Steve. The moment Jane opened her mouth to speak, however, Claudia promptly turned on her heel and dashed up the stairs. Jane must have known she'd been standing there through the entire conversation, and the way she seemed to be making an indirect comment on the counter-productiveness of Claudia's endeavour served only to increase the burning rage and contempt the young agent now had for the Regents.

Outraged, Claudia made for Myka's room, no longer anxious about what she should say. All the uncertainty she had felt as she knocked on agent Bering's door the night before had now vanished, overshadowed by her fury at the injustice of it all.

'Sustained many losses,' she spat through gritted teeth, again struggling to fight her tears back, hardly able to believe how casual they were all being about it – Kosan, Jane, even Pete, who seemed happy to buy into their bullshit about regrets and sacrifices. And Artie, Artie who went off on his merry way to the Warehouse as if nothing ever happened, not bothering to question any of it, not bothering to say a word. They were all so eager to just forget. Watching Myka argue with Kosan the previous night, for all the empathy Claudia had for Myka, she had also been taken aback by her usually composed and compliant friend's outburst. Now, she understood perfectly why Myka acted the way she did, and could feel the same furious indignance coursing through her. _Collateral damage._

Distracted, she almost burst right into Myka's room. Stopping herself at the last moment, she took a deep breath and tried to conceal her impatience as she knocked on Myka's door.

No answer.

Frowning, she knocked again, much louder this time.

Nothing.

Her anger momentarily overshadowed by an abrupt flood of concern for Myka, she put her ear to the door. _Calm down, she's fine_, Claudia thought distractedly. In an effort to shove her thoughts onto a more reasonable track, she attempted reassuring herself that when Myka hadn't answered the door last night, it could've just been because she didn't want to talk to anyone, or maybe she was just asleep. And now, well, Pete might be wrong, maybe Myka had already left for the Warehouse, unnoticed.

A grain of anxiety and uncertainty remained however, and Claudia tried the doorknob, knowing she had to make sure Myka wasn't at the B&B before heading out for the Warehouse.

'Myka?'

The door was unlocked. It swung open with a drawn-out creak which resonated in the otherwise silent room.

Myka wasn't there, and while nothing in the room indicated that anything unusual might have happened, a haze of inexplicable fear came over Claudia. Acting on an impulse she would be at a loss to explain if asked about, Claudia crossed the room and made for the wardrobe, pushed against the far wall. She wrenched the door open and jumped as her Farnsworth started buzzing shrilly.

She flipped it open and it was a mark of the gravity of the situation that no joke about getting a call from Artie's eyebrows, of which she was enjoying an uncomfortable close up on the small screen, even crossed her mind.

'No time, need you at the Warehouse _right _ now, bring Myka and Pete. We have a problem. Now!'

Before she could say anything, the screen went black.

_We do indeed_, she thought, staring at the empty clothes hangers.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sooo the update took much longer than I would've liked, but I've finally managed to find enough time to put the next chapter together. It's a bit of a long one, but then I do enjoy writing Myka far too much. Here's hoping it's at least half as enjoyable to read...:) Thanks for all the feedback, it really makes my day every time.**

Myka wasn't running.

If anything, it was the rest of the world that scattered before her.

She held her gaze steadily on the road, eyes flickering occasionally to the highway signs glistening in the piercing rays of the morning sun. Her hands gripped the steering wheel with firm confidence; confidence that no obstacle could stand in her path for long when faced with the fearlessness that the strength her conviction had lent her. She absent-mindedly noted her surprise at how calm she felt. The previous night at the B&B, the overwhelming chorus of tangled emotions raging within her had made her want to tear her chest wide open. Now, when she turned her gaze inwards, all she saw was an empty void, which seemed to be pulling tightly on her ribs from within. Was it just her rational mind taking over, pushing her towards the detached professionalism of an official assignment?

As overly dramatic as she would have found the notion in a more objective state of mind, Myka couldn't help thinking something inside her had died last night, along with Helena.

Pete's words were still ringing in her ears, mingled with the echoes of her exchange with Mr Kosan, when she shut the door of her bedroom behind her and promptly burst into tears. Her mind was stretched to breaking point with the evening's events, and for a while, she could do nothing but sob frantically, losing the remnants of control she had fought so hard to maintain. For what felt like an eternity, she paced the room without noticing what she was doing, her hands shaking violently, her mind in pieces. No longer able to stem the flow of images pushing at her consciousness from every angle, she gave in to the memories, so recent yet already embedded so deeply in her mind. With merciless clarity, she remembered Helena's smile, her last smile as the blaze of the explosion tore the Warehouse apart, and felt as if a similar, nuclear blast was taking place inside her chest. Up until that moment, she considered the idea of being broken hearted as nothing more than a poetic metaphor. Now, it couldn't be more real.

She stopped her pacing and took a deep, shaky breath, looking around herself desperately, as if in search of something that would help her put herself back together. Her eyes fell on her Farnsworth and she let out a hollow laugh, which hitched in her throat and turned into another sob. The Warehouse was safe. It would be business as usual tomorrow morning, pings and inventory and artifacts and saving the fucking world, all over again. Except…

Except it didn't matter anymore. There was no solace to be found in the idea of the Warehouse being restored. Even as she had watched it being obliterated into less than dust before her eyes, she had thoughts only for Helena. Anyone who knew Myka for longer than a day would be left in no doubt that her job was her utmost priority in life. Yet here it was, stretched in the everlasting moment of realisation, the ultimate proof to the contrary. Helena meant much more to her than the Warehouse ever had.

Stunned by that thought alone, somewhat calmer now, Myka heard Pete's words coming back to her again. Could it be that there was some, too much perhaps, truth to his words? After all, just because for Helena to come back is what Myka wanted more than anything, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is what Helena herself would have wanted. In both of her lifetimes, separated by over a century of self-inflicted mental torture trapped in bronze, Helena has been through so much more than any human being should reasonably be expected to endure. So really, perhaps Myka owed it to her to respect her sacrifice and move on.

As Myka's thoughts wandered back over the conversation with Pete, she remembered something that had occurred to her at the time, brought on by his point about Helena 'going out on her own terms'. Perhaps Helena did it to free herself at long last, both from the burdens of her past and the challenges of her future, ever uncertain. Of constantly having to run from something and of never being trusted, having to prove herself over and again as her generally kind nature clashed with the darkness life had planted inside her.

Not sure what to think anymore, Myka suddenly felt defeated. Resignation beginning to settle in, she stopped pacing again and sat down on her bed. A slight frown crossed her tear-streaked face as she felt something dig into her thigh. She reached into the pocket of her jeans. In the blur of tension and chaos that the last few hours had been, she had completely forgotten that she had picked it up. The thing Helena had once risked everything to retrieve from the Escher Vault, later to be left behind as a clue for Myka to find her. Helena's locket.

Her fingers tightened on the metal, warm from where it had been pressed against her body. She remembered Helena standing in the forest clearing, looking up, her hand clasped over the necklace. _"The last thing I want to see is the sky." _

_What the hell does Pete know_, she thought bitterly, her jaw clenched.

All of a sudden it was all so perfectly, brilliantly clear that Myka couldn't believe it's taken her so long to fathom. How she could have even entertained the idea of doing nothing, of simply moving on-

Jumping up from the bed, she slipped the locket back into her pocket and began to move around the room, gathering her most essential possessions and throwing them into a small bag she always used for out of town assignments. The many and complex feelings she's been struggling with all night have now solidified into single-minded determination, and it was as if after several centuries of darkness, someone had turned on the light.

She's going to bring Helena back.

The decision felt like Myka's mind catching up with itself. It had already been made, maybe even hours ago, maybe even as she watched Helena's death, and now, now that her conscious mind had untangled the logic that had led to the decision, she was going to act on it. As she straightened up to take a look around the room, she realised abruptly that her mind had been set instantly, hours ago, she just didn't know it. And all the while, even as she was trying to process everything that's happened, a plan had been forming in the back of her mind.

She zipped up her bag and, resolute, her expression one of furious concentration, she carried it over to the window. Leaving through the front door carried too much risk of being intercepted by one of the other inhabitants of the B&B, and she had neither the time nor the willingness to argue with anyone just then. She was done explaining herself and beyond justifying her actions; there was no doubt in her mind that this was something she had to do alone. Throwing her bag over her shoulder, she opened the window and climbed out onto the roof. She made her way silently towards the edge and made quick work of getting down onto the solid ground, grateful for the foothold the ivy covering the wall provided. She was exceptionally aware of her lithe body as she stood still for a few seconds, listening hard. All she could hear was the rhythmic thumping of her own overburdened heart and the hum of blood in her ears as every muscle and nerve in her body yearned to be on the move, to be thrown into action. When no sounds came from inside the building and no lights flickered on, she got into her car, throwing the bag onto the back seat.

Trying to remain as quiet as possible, she pulled out of the drive slowly, not turning her headlights on until she was safely around the corner and out of sight of the B&B. All the while, she revelled in the relative peace of mind that her determination had brought her. Now that she was doing something, taking action, every move she made felt like it brought her closer to saving Helena. That thought alone was all she needed to remain focused.

She headed for the Warehouse at breakneck speed, making record time and slowing down only when she was within sight of the building. No thoughts of insubordination or persecution crossed her mind; there was only here and now and all that mattered was how she was going to deal with it. The consequences were irrelevant.

Still, there was much to be said for being careful. She turned out her headlights again. Kosan had said the Regents would be assessing the Warehouse overnight, and the very last thing on earth Myka wanted to do was to run into him or any of the other Regents as she was en-route to going rogue.

Sure enough, she quickly spotted two black SUVs parked just outside the front of the Warehouse, dimly visible by the unnaturally white light of the lamps mounted above the entrance to the building. Stopping her car far enough from the Warehouse and the road to remain unseen, she killed the engine and sat back. She took a long breath. The cool night air felt like gravel as it irritated the back of her throat, sore from crying and shouting alike.

The silence was almost too much to bear, pressing in on her from every direction. She loathed being stationary again, inert, completely alone with the darkness of her thoughts. Her mind made an involuntary connection with how it must have felt for Helena to be trapped in bronze, and she made a conscious effort to push the thought away. She had far more pressing and far more relevant concerns.

She wasn't sure how long she had sat there, turning her plans and ideas over in her mind. By the time the sound of car doors being slammed reached her, the digital clock on her dashboard read 3.42am. Within minutes, the departing SUVs moved past her and the sound of their engines grew increasingly distant. When the silence around her became absolute again, she grabbed her bag, got out of the car and headed towards the Warehouse on foot.

Unlocking the front door, for the first time in her years of service for the Warehouse she had reason to wonder whether there would be a record of her entering the building. Probably. It didn't really matter.

Once inside, she wasted no time. She made her way methodically through the endless aisles, stopping only when she reached particular artifacts she knew would make her plan a lot easier to carry out. Hours of doing inventory combined with her uncommon ability to instantly memorise information had resulted in Myka knowing a lot of the artifacts, complete with their locations, off by heart. In fact, one of the main reasons why she had been hired by the Warehouse in the first place was her exceptionally good memory. Now, she was using that exact skill to steal artifacts she needed in order to defy her superiors and all the Warehouse stood for. The irony was not lost on her.

Soon, her bag was bulging with objects she had once been committed to retrieving and protecting. She had just one more stop to make before leaving, and she wondered dimly whether she'd deliberately left it for last.

Myka knew the H.G. Wells section of the Warehouse better than any other. She didn't dare admit even to herself the countless times she had wandered between the aisles and crates, marvelling at the seemingly endless capacity of the Victorian woman's mind. And for all the times she had consciously reminded herself that the raven-haired Englishwoman was _the actual _H.G. Wells, the connection had never quite been forged in her brain for some unfathomable reason. Quite apart from everything else, fascinating and captivating though the novels undoubtedly were, the real H.G. Wells was doubly so, to Myka's mind at the very least.

An oddly surreal feeling came over Myka as she stood amidst Helena's possessions and machines of indeterminable purposes. They seemed to radiate the essence of Helena Wells herself – exceptionally brilliant, darkly enigmatic, notoriously unpredictable… and possibly dangerous. For some bewildering reason, the thought of the latter made Myka smile to herself.

Shaking her head slightly in an attempt to refocus her thoughts, she walked over to a shelf she had visited too many times to count. H.G.'s grappler was still there, exactly where Myka had placed it, what now felt like an entire lifetime ago. The post-it was there too, and Myka couldn't suppress another smile, despite the painful awareness of the present state of things, her world crashing down and her life spiralling out of control.

'Keep it, you can owe me.'

_Not for much longer_, Myka thought, picking up the gun and slipping it into her bag, on top of the other artifacts.

She'd already turned to leave when her eyes fell on something else, further down the shelf. H.G.'s old notebook was there; a thick tome bound in brown leather, darkened with age. Needless to say Myka had seen it before, but she'd never had the nerve to open it. She presumed it was a journal or diary of some kind, and tempted as she was to delve deeper into the unfathomable brilliance of Helena's mind, Myka had always had the sense that to read it would be an invasion of privacy of sorts.

That was in another lifetime, defined by the confines of socially acceptable mediocrity. One where Myka had been the meticulous, obedient agent of the Warehouse; one in which insubordination had no place and personal feelings and matters had been pushed aside to make room for all-consuming service to the cause, to the service. One in which Myka had had not the faintest inkling of the darkness now spreading within her.

Acting on an impulse, she picked up the notebook and turning on her heel, marched towards the exit.

The sun had not yet risen when Myka left the Warehouse and made for Interstate 90. Now, a couple of hours later, its early morning rays were beginning to fill the inside of Myka's car with much needed warmth as she passed Rapid City and took a left turn, heading south.

There was no doubt in her mind that her disappearance would have been noticed by now. It was all too easy for her to imagine the chaos of the chain reaction she had set in motion the moment she had climbed out of her bedroom window.

It's only a matter of time before the Regents take action against her and attempt to put a stop to her plan. The stark awareness of that fact only spurred her on.

A few years back, she'd have accepted H.G.'s death, knowing there was nothing to be done. She would have grieved and suffered for a while, until the day to day routine forced her to pull herself together in the desperate belief that life goes on. Death had been synonymous with utter, irreversible finality then, something one had no choice but to eventually give in to, accepting defeat. After all she'd seen since joining the Warehouse, that was no longer the case.

Casting a sidelong glance at the bag propped on the passenger seat, she accelerated.

There is always a way in the World of Endless Wonder.


	5. Chapter 5

'What do you mean she's gone?' Artie's impatience and bewilderment could not have been plainer.

'Call me an optimist, but I'd have thought it's pretty self-explanatory,' Claudia shot back, anger rising in her voice. 'For the third time: Myka is not here. She's also not at the B&B. And neither is her stuff. Hence, she's _gone_.'

Artie blinked a few times, with every impression of still not quite comprehending Claudia's words.

'But then where could she…' he trailed off, his unseeing eyes leaving Claudia's face to stare into the distance. Before anyone else could say anything, he slapped his forehead abruptly. 'Of course! How did I not… but…' he exclaimed most unhelpfully.

'Artie!' Pete said loudly, causing the older man's head to snap up, his eyes wide and startled as if he'd just been violently woken up from a deep sleep. 'Care to tell us what the hell is going on? Where's Myka?'

'Gone,' Artie said in a hollow voice, drawing a pained and swiftly ignored 'Finally!' from Claudia.

'Gone where, what, you mean she's left the Warehouse? Again?' Pete's voice was infused with a mixture of despair at the thought and irritation at not getting any answers.

Claudia was silent, looking from one man to the other, waiting for her very worst suspicions to be confirmed.

'I..' Artie began, then paused to exhale and recompose himself. 'There are artifacts missing from the Warehouse, quite a few of them. That's why I called you here.'

Claudia didn't need to hear any more. That was all the confirmation she needed. Pete, on the other hand, still seemed confused.

'Artifacts gone, Myka gone, with her car and her things,' Artie continued. 'All the morning after H.G. Wells died.'

'You think she's gone AWOL? Myka, _our Myka_, Myka Colour-Coded Plans And Knowing The Manual Off By Heart Bering?' said Pete in very obvious disbelief, after a moment of stunned silence. 'C'mon Artie, that's impossible-'

'I don't know!' snapped the senior agent, throwing his hands up in the air. 'But that's the only explanation I can think of, given the facts.'

'Alright, I know what this looks like,' Pete said. 'But I _know_ Myka, and I'm telling you she wouldn't do that. Now, I'm going to call her and-'

'Already tried, goes straight to voicemail.' Claudia interjected. 'And before you suggest calling her Farnsworth…' She pulled Myka's Farnsworth out of her bag and placed it on Artie's desk with a metallic sound that might as well have been a gunshot.

'I found it on her bedside table when I went upstairs to look for her,' she said by way of explanation.

Pete blinked, staring at the small metal box, momentarily stunned. Suddenly, he straightened up and said, briskly,

'Alright then, let's go.'

And he grabbed his jacket off the back of Artie's chair and began walking towards the door.

'You don't know where she is,' Artie said through gritted teeth, his tone indicating he'd been expecting this.

Claudia, as a matter of fact, had seen it coming too. The moment she realised what Myka had done, she was sure Pete would want to go after her straight away. Unfortunately, she didn't have the same sort of certainty when it came to her own reaction. Naturally, there was a part of her that wanted to go after Myka too; to make sure the agent didn't get herself into trouble with the Regents or have an artifact backfire on her, or the million other things that could go wrong. But at the same time, she couldn't help sympathising with Myka on some level. While the older woman's actions seemed far direr and more drastic, her goal wasn't so different from Claudia's own, where Steve and the Metronome were concerned. Put plainly, Claudia knew she'd be a massive hypocrite if she tried to stop Myka saving H.G. by whatever means she deemed necessary.

Still… Claudia would've liked to know where Myka was, and whether she was alright. The only way to do that would be to try to track her down, and then… And then maybe try to help her, instead of stopping her.

'What about the artifacts you said are missing,' she said suddenly, turning to Artie. Pete stopped in his tracks.

'What about them?'

'Well, can't they give us any clues as to where Myka might have gone? What she's trying to do? We might as well start there before we go running off to-'

'_Nobody_ is going to be running off to anywhere, Miss Donovan,' came a sudden voice, making all three of them jump. Mrs Frederic was standing by the door, just behind Pete.

'Mrs F.! We have a situation here-'

'I'm perfectly aware of what the situation is, agent Lattimer. Which is why neither you nor Claudia will be going anywhere for the time being.'

'But Myka-'

'Will have to be dealt with by the Regents.'

Mrs Frederic took several steps closer to them, Pete following, in the ominous silence her words had drawn over the room.

'I'm afraid I have to agree with Arthur on this matter – agent Bering seems to have taken it upon herself to find a way of bringing Miss Wells back to life, without authorisation. This renders you, agent Lattimer, the only experienced agent present at the Warehouse, and as such, your orders are to remain here and carry on with your duties, _no_ arguments.'

Her last two words have been said in a much sharper tone of voice, as Pete showed every sign of preparing to object. Claudia opened her mouth to speak too, but was cut short again.

'And you, Miss Donovan – I hardly need to remind you that you are the next Caretaker in line. After all that has happened here recently, it is possible some…difficulties may arise. In the unlikely event that something happens to me, you will be needed at a moment's notice. Agent Nielsen – don't even think about it.'

Artie looked startled at being suddenly included in the half-reprimanding monologue, but said nothing. It was Claudia who asked the question weighing heavily on everyone's minds.

'What's going to happen to Myka?'

'Protocol states that all matters of insubordination should be dealt with by the Regents – another reason why you three would be wise to stay out of the situation. Attempts are being made as we speak to track Agent Bering down to bring her in for questioning, after which the Regents will make their decision as to any further action they wish to take.'

Pete and Claudia exchanged dark looks. That didn't sound good at all.

* * *

The sun was high in the sky by the time Myka arrived in at Denver International Airport. Her entire body felt stiff after the long drive and it was with great relief that she opened the car door and stepped out into the bright sunshine. She flexed her back and her neck, feeling her muscles twist and strain. She might have felt dead inside but her body was very much alive.

Grabbing her bag and locking the car, she walked to the main building and into the bank. She had walked past the small branch located near the entrance too many times to count, both while working for the Secret Service in Denver and on Warehouse assignments. It had never occurred to her how convenient it would prove itself to be. After a short wait in line to the counter, she withdrew nearly all of the money her account had held, leaving just enough to pay for her plane ticket. There were some awkward questions to deflect and a lot of badly disguised impatience from the clerk, who grumbled something about the bank having barely enough cash in the vault to fulfil her request. She took it all calmly, with the awareness that it really wouldn't do to attract any attention to herself just now – any more attention than requesting several thousand dollars in cash had already earned her, that is.

The cash safely in her bag and funds in her account still sufficient for a plane ticket, she left the bank and headed for the main part of the building, where there was another line for her to join. As she waited, her eyes scanned the departures board overhead. Budapest, 12.45. She glanced at her watch. Tight, but she could make it work.

* * *

'Damn.'

Claudia leant back in her chair, eyes shut and lips pursed. No matter how hard she tried, her mind just point blank refused to concentrate on the inventory she was supposed to be doing. And she really did try. She'd be nothing short of grateful for something to drag her thoughts away from Steve, and Myka, and Helena, and oh good god that whole Caretaker thing.

'Claud!'

She almost fell out of her chair as Pete came bursting into the room.

'Holy shit-scares Batman, you ever heard of-'

'Mrs F. is here.'

Without another word or a backwards glance at the files now strewn all over the floor, she followed Pete out of the door. Mrs Frederic, who had been talking to Artie, stopped and turned towards them.

'I bring news of agent Bering,' she said without further ado. 'She is currently at Denver Airport, about to board a flight to Hungary.'

At Claudia's wide eyed look of surprise, she elaborated.

'A trace has been placed on her ID and credit card. The Regents have just received intelligence that she had used both to purchase her plane ticket. _Before_ you say anything,' she threw a glance at Pete, who jumped up, ready to go, 'Her flight leaves in less than an hour, that's nowhere near enough time to get to Denver. The Regents will have someone intercept agent Bering in Budapest.'


	6. Chapter 6

There was categorically no way that Claudia would to be able to concentrate on doing inventory. It had been hard enough before Mrs Frederic's unexpected visit, and now, with so many conflicting thoughts buzzing in the young agent's head, paperwork was completely out of the question.

_Myka's going to Budapest_, she thought over and over, trying desperately to force her mind into making a connection with something, anything of use… and drawing a total blank.

Mrs Frederic's news of Myka having been tracked down so quickly drew two opposing reactions from Claudia. She hadn't voiced either of them to anyone; having to deal with them in her own head was quite enough to be getting on with. On one hand, she couldn't be more relieved to know that Myka was alright, and that there was no danger of her getting caught up in something too dire. The time between her leaving Univille and buying her plane ticket was barely enough for the drive to Denver, so it's not as if Myka could've gotten into too much trouble along the way. Perhaps the Regents wouldn't be too harsh on her, if there were no lasting consequences of her insubordination. Still, Claudia couldn't suppress a slight pang of disappointment, for some odd reason. She wasn't quite sure how much she liked admitting that to herself, but on some level, she'd been rooting for Myka. She was aware of the awkward suspicion taking residence somewhere deep in the back of her mind, in the nether regions of consciousness she generally avoided accessing. A suspicion that perhaps she was hoping Myka would succeed in bringing H.G. back because that would absolve Claudia of any feelings of guilt she might otherwise have when using the Metronome on Steve. They'd both have their loved ones back and there'd be no place for any hard feelings.

Loved ones. She has used the term in her head a few times now, neither paying much attention to it nor questioning its accuracy. With her and Steve it was simple; he was the best friend she's ever had and that was that. But she'd always been at a loss as to what exactly was going on between Myka and H.G. For there was definitely something there, she just couldn't put her finger on it. Myka had deflected her questions about H.G. with the skill of a battle-hardened attorney, and Claudia couldn't help suspecting that Myka wasn't quite sure herself what it all meant.

Purely for something to do, in an attempt to chase the more confusing of her thoughts away, Claudia bent down and began picking up the files she'd knocked off the desk when Pete had startled her earlier. After only a few seconds, though, she froze.

Something didn't quite add up.

Myka had taken great care in covering her tracks when she entered the Warehouse the night before. The artifacts she had stolen, the list of which Claudia and Artie spent most of the morning pouring over, held nothing that might indicate what she was planning to do or where. They were all generic and unrelated to anything in particular. If that hadn't been enough, there was also no evidence of Myka accessing the Warehouse database. That was the first thing Claudia had checked, hoping Myka might have done some research before leaving, something that could then point them in the right direction when looking for her. There was nothing.

Not to mention Myka sneaking out in the middle of the night and running off, without a word to anyone. She didn't want to be followed or found, and she very efficiently left them with no place to start.

And then she goes and gets herself tracked down by using her own credit card and passport.

Claudia sat down, thinking hard. Something told her the Regents were in for a surprise.

* * *

Never in her life had Myka been so glad to have made the decision of joining the Secret Service all those years ago. Admittedly, she'd also never thought she'd be using her badge to smuggle stolen objects of an exceptionally questionable nature through airport security. But just imagining trying to explain her bag and her Tesla – not to mention her handgun – to the TSA almost gave her a headache.

As it was, she got herself immediate clearance with the use of her credentials. She suspected giving the guard her very best 'don't mess with me or I'll make you regret this moment for the end of all time' face might have helped, too.

Walking past coffee shops and duty-free stores, she quickly located the toilets. She locked herself in a cubicle and began rummaging in her bag, thinking all the while that perhaps she was being overcautious. The Regents were sure to catch up with her eventually, one way or another, and she probably wouldn't even see it coming. It's difficult to know when you've made a mistake when you have no idea of the extent of the other party's influence. And the Regents weren't exactly the most open or honest bunch.

Her hand closed on the object she'd been looking for and she drew it out, thinking vaguely that this was to become the first artifact she would ever use against the Warehouse, in a way, rather than for it. Bram Stoker's Razor, the now understandably old-fashioned, cut-throat kind he'd have used for shaving, lay in her palm. It had been proven to cause the user to have no reflection in mirrors, much like Stoker's Dracula. According to one theory, Stoker's idea for the novel came to him whilst shaving. All Myka was concerned about at the moment though was whether the Razor worked on security cameras as well as mirrors.

Having neither the means nor the time to find out, she could only hope it would.

She slipped it into her pocket and left the cubicle, relieved to find that there was no one else by the sinks. Myka herself was startled enough by the absence of her reflection in the large, wall mounted mirrors; she couldn't even begin to imagine how she'd explain the phenomenon to someone else.

Looking in the mirror without her reflection staring back at her was a distinctly odd experience, and it took Myka several seconds to tear her gaze away from the glass. She couldn't help looking down at her own body to confirm that she was in fact still there.

Shaking the moment off, she left the toilets and began to walk between the brightly lit shops again, looking for a fire exit. After a couple of minutes, she heard the last call for her flight to Budapest coming through the speakers. Except it wasn't her flight at all. She never intended to go to Hungary, but with a bit of luck, the Regents wouldn't know that. She spotted the metal double doors at the end of a narrow side corridor, topped with a green neon sign.

And a security guard.

Without hesitation, she turned into the corridor and headed straight towards the tall, black-clad man. Before he had time to say anything or reach for his taser, she drew her Tesla and fired without a word. He was unconscious before he even hit the floor.

Myka had hoped she wouldn't have to do anything quite so drastic, but the very last thing she needed was to have the airport security on her, as well as the Regents. There was no hiding from the latter for long, but if she'd been correct in thinking the Razor would render her invisible to the cameras, the TSA at least wouldn't be coming after her.

She let herself out through the fire escape door, with the aid of a security pass she picked up off the unconscious guard. Letting the door shut behind her, she walked through the parking lot back to the front of the building, where she quickly found a car renting service.

There was no real reason to suspect that the Regents had any means of tracking her car, but she wouldn't put it past them. Whether she was being paranoid or not, she still felt it would be best not to travel in her own car, if only because the number plates could easily be traced back to her.

* * *

An hour later, Myka was driving west in the rented Chevrolet Impala, I-70 stretching out endlessly before her, her thoughts on the task ahead. She knew it was impossible to shake the Regents off completely; she would have to face them sooner or later. With any luck, though, the false trail she'd given them would keep them busy for a while.

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard and accelerated, scowling slightly in irritation. If it wasn't for having to sneak around, cover her tracks and dodge the Warehouse at every turn, she would now be halfway through the flight to her real destination. As it was, she still had a solid ten hours of driving ahead of her, before she got to Las Vegas. She would take another flight from there, this time without using her real identification. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to get on another plane from Denver; she couldn't shake the feeling that there was too much risk involved. It was only a matter of time before the Regents realised she never reached Budapest. They were sure to then try and retrace her steps from Denver International. That's what she would've done in their place, at least.

No matter, she thought. A small setback, in the grand scheme of things. And in less than forty-eight hours, she'd be in London. One step closer to Helena.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Bit of a delayed update as I've been inconveniently busy lately, plus I had a minor plothole further down the line to figure out. Also thank you for all the feedback, I genuinely appreciate it and it's made it a lot easier to stay motivated and keep at it with this story.**

**Anyway, here goes. **

* * *

The door opened with a creek that rendered Myka's resigned sigh unheard. It's not as if she was expecting the cheap motel room to be in any way spectacular; still, the cramped, horribly decorated interior left much to be desired. It's only for one night, she told herself, locking the door and dropping her bag by the bed. The motel had two major advantages that definitively outweighed the horrid décor – it was close to McCarran Airport and firmly belonged to the no-questions-asked variety.

It'd been almost midnight by the time Myka arrived in Las Vegas. The flight to London she was planning on catching didn't leave until the morning, so with nothing else to be getting on with until then she rented herself a room in the sort of place that didn't ask for ID or bank details. That didn't ask for anything, in fact, if you played your cards right. An unnecessarily large tip and a carefully exposed glimpse of a holstered handgun seemed to have been the right combination.

Myka freshened up in the small bathroom, valiantly trying to ignore the state of it and taking great care to focus solely on her movements. By the time she returned to the room and sat on the dilapidated bed, she knew her doubts about renting the room had been something she should've heeded. Staying here was a mistake; one that had nothing to do with the room being barely fit for human habitation.

She hid her face in her hands and after a second, let her head bow lower and her fingers slide into her hair. The deathly silence seemed to be pressing in on her from every angle, crushing her, making her desire nothing more than to disappear entirely, melt into it and think no more. For the first time since leaving the B&B, she had nothing to hold on to. Nothing to distract her from the swirling darkness filling her mind and soul.

_Damn it all to hell_. She made a small noise of frustration in the back of her throat. It was swallowed up by the silent void before she had the time to register how alien it sounded. Alone with herself, she'd spend all night fighting a losing battle against her thoughts, and every emotion that threatened to overwhelm her mind; all far easier to ignore when there were more pressing practical concerns at hand. Without moving her head, she cast a sidelong glance at the flattened pillows and rolled her eyes hopelessly. There was no way she'd be able to sleep; she'd known that before she even stopped the rented car in front of the motel. Despite having been awake for what were possibly the most intense and draining forty hours of her life, sleep was out of the question. Her body may have been exhausted, but her mind was doubly so. The mere thought of lying down in the darkness and the silence made her shudder. Then she _really_ wouldn't be able to stop the torrent of entirely unwelcome thoughts overtaking her brain.

With a glance at her bag, she had half a mind to leave the motel and find something, anything to occupy herself with. She'd drive around aimlessly until the morning if she had to; even that would be better than the excruciating inaction. She needed a distraction, something to draw her away from the edge of the abyss she'd been balancing on precariously for what felt like an eternity now. She needed a distraction for otherwise, her resolve and façade of quiet efficiency would break and fall apart, crumble into pieces; and so would she, shattered and lifeless. She even picked up the bag and stood up to go before remembering something and sitting back down again. After a second's hesitation, she drew out Helena's notebook, taken from the Warehouse and forgotten about until now.

There was still a sliver of uncertainty within her. Perhaps the book would be best left alone, perhaps she shouldn't look inside. It bore every mark of being a diary, and while many years may have passed since Helena had written the words within, it was still an invasion of privacy to read them. Myka became aware of her fingers tracing patterns on the dark brown leather of the front cover, fingertips lingering on the outer edge. A battle of a different kind was raging within her now, one between curiosity and guilt.

Making her mind up abruptly, she shifted on the bed to lean back against the wooden headboard and opened the book, making every effort to ignore the voice of reason telling her to put it away and forget about it again. If whatever was inside transpired to be too personal, she could always stop reading, she reasoned with herself as, unable to help herself, she began to flick through the thick yellowed pages.

Glimpses of technical drawings and complex diagrams, littered with annotations and divided by several pages of continuous writing here and there met her eyes. Not exactly a diary, then. The remnants of guilt gave way to her mounting curiosity and, reassured, she stopped on a random page of writing.

_"__Disassociation," _Helena's flowing handwriting read._ "The disappearance of all meaning in one's life is swiftly followed by one's sense of self... as much as one's sense of others. In an existence eclipsed by the loss, no longer is there anything of sufficient significance to preserve one's integrity. Untethered, there is nothing one would think oneself incapable of doing; and what may have once been unthinkable becomes a matter of means and ends."_

Helena had said Myka knew her better than anyone else. In that instant, Myka saw just how mutual the sentiment had become.

Blinking away her tears impatiently, she went back to the first page and began looking through the book more slowly. It didn't take long for her to understand and confirm her initial suspicions. The notebook was a record of Helena's attempts at saving Christina. Early blueprints of her inventions mingled with complex mathematical equations, notes on different artifacts and their properties shared their pages with hastily scribbled quotations, diagrams and schematics alternated with long pieces of writing, of Helena's existential musings. All serving the shared purpose of being a lasting testament to Helena's perpetual despair and relentless refusal to accept defeat. All ringing truer to Myka's state of mind and being than anything ever had before.

She had thought she understood H.G., that she alone could see why the inventor had done the things she had. Not for the first time, Myka had no choice but to conclude she'd been wrong. _Now_ she understood. Not just for the notebook giving such a painful insight into Helena's inner torment, but also for how closely it mirrored Myka's own thoughts. Over a century ago, Helena had given all else up for the sole aim of saving Christina. Now, Myka had done exactly the same to save H.G.

It was all she could to do hope against all logic that she would be more successful in her endeavour than Helena had been.

Myka gently laid a hand on one of the pages, oblivious to the solitary tear now winding its way down her cheek. Her vision blurred.

_Helena. _

Helena's slender hand tracing the gracefully sloping letters now inked onto the page. Her hair would fall about her face in silky black curtains as she bent down over the notebook. She'd brush it back with her long, elegant fingers in absent-minded impatience; a futile attempt, only for it to instantly obscure her face again.

She would have been wearing that look of intense concentration that Myka had seen so many times before. That almost imperceptible frown that nevertheless somehow rendered her unearthly features even more distant and deadly in their beauty, beyond reach… Fearless determination lending her dark eyes the cold intensity that left the world in no doubt that she would do whatever it took to reach her goal, and to stand in her way was to cross death itself.

Myka felt a rush of icy certainty. She could feel every fibre making up the clothes she was wearing, could feel the blood flowing in her veins, could hear her own pulse as if it was a sound originating from outside of her body, from somewhere far off.

She understood.

It was early morning by the time Myka fell asleep, fully dressed and still holding the notebook open in her lap. The soft darkness of unconsciousness enveloped her body and mind and she drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She couldn't have known that over a thousand miles away, someone else had just been startled awake. Artie sat up sharply, listening hard. At first, he had been sure that a noise coming from somewhere in the Warehouse below had woken him up, but his certainty faded with every passing moment. Everything was quiet and still. Through the returning haze of sleep, he thought dimly that he ought to get up and make sure everything was in order. Before he could act on the thought, sleep reclaimed his mind and he slid back onto the pillows.


	8. Chapter 8

Fire.

Scorching, blazing fire. A raging inferno exploding within her chest. Spreading out, tearing through tissue, through muscle and bone, breaking into veins and setting her blood alight.

She gasped and choked on the air that brought with it another wave of searing pain, reaching every nerve, grotesquely twisting her body where she lay, unable to move as every muscle and tendon tensed against her will, against the torrent of flame ripping through her.

For a second that may have been an hour or a month or several eternities, there was nothing but blood and fire and a blinding light and a frantic pulse and powdered glass disintegrating her from within and screams of agony.

The screaming was in her head. If she were able to make any sound at all, she'd be screaming her throat raw. She could hardly draw a breath though and no sound would leave her lips as her chest contracted, collapsing in on itself it would seem. Her back was arched of its own accord and her head thrown backwards; her neck so tense she thought the tendons might snap and the arteries burst with the pressure. Her jaw was clenched painfully and surely, this was the end of it all, the boundary of human endurance, the final moment of her life.

Just as the shadow of unconsciousness began to loom over her, she managed to draw a shuddering breath through her gritted teeth, followed by another, steadier one. Gradually, so excruciatingly slowly, she felt her body relax and the pain take on a dull edge. Forcing herself to slow her breathing, she rolled onto her back.

Her back. The floor.

She became aware of her surroundings for the first time. Despite her stinging eyes and blurry vision, she immediately recognised the building she was in. There was only one like this in the world. The realisation, however, brought nothing but utter confusion that made her momentarily forget the ache still weighing her body down.

_What in the name of…_

There was no mistaking the tall shelves, stretching in endless aisles to either side of her, piled high.

Questions of how, why, when and what deluged her uncharacteristically muddled mind, along with a fresh wave of pain as she tried to move. Struggling against her own body and the desire to remain motionless right there on the floor, she forced herself to get up. The sole effort of it made her dizzy and she felt entirely unsteady on her feet. She took a few experimental steps forward and, regaining her balance somewhat, looked around to get her bearings. In an instant, she knew where she was going, and she began to make her way towards the correct aisle. Right now, there was only one question of extreme exigency: How she was going to get out of the Warehouse without being detected. Everything else could wait.

The only sources of light were the LCD screens mounted on the shelves in regular intervals, but even by their dim, bluish glow, she managed to find what she was looking for. Struggling to remain focused, she tapped a few buttons on the touchscreen display to ensure the removal of the artifact would not alert the system. She reached out a shaking hand and picked up a small glass object. The moment her fingers closed around the triangular artifact… they were no longer there. Neither was her arm, or any part of her as a matter of fact.

Invisibility made for a spectacularly odd experience even at the best of times, and she certainly wasn't feeling anywhere near her best just then. Being unable to see any part of her body but at the same time having an acute awareness of the pain still residing in its every cell was nothing short of bizarre.

She had no idea how long it had taken her to reach the office. It could have been less than a minute and it was just as likely to have been an hour. She wasn't even sure how exactly she got there; the only thing she had a vague recollection of was the immense effort it had taken her to focus on nothing but taking one agonising step after another. In the same determined, methodical fashion, she made her way in the semi-darkness past Artie's desk and through the umbilicus.

Invisible though she was, there was nothing she could do to silence the hiss of the door. All that remained was to hope that Artie's sleep was as heavy as the looks he'd been so prone to giving her.

The pain in her muscles flared up again as she heaved against the thick metal of the Warehouse's main door. She could scarcely believe the effort it took to pry it open. Her body felt weak, so weak, as if it had been ripped apart and then put back together again haphazardly, and now needed time to fuse back into its usual strong, lithe form.

After one final push, the door stood open before her. No sound was coming from inside the Warehouse; nothing to suggest Artie had been alerted to her presence. She made it.

She'd have been amazed at her own brilliance had she not grown so confidently accustomed to it.

Without a backwards glance, H.G. Wells stepped out into the South Dakota night.

* * *

'Useful little thing, aren't you,' H.G. murmured, slipping the Prism into her pocket and watching her body reappear as the glass no longer made direct contact with her skin. She had snagged this particular artifact herself, and despite the many intervening decades could recall the details of the assignment all too clearly. It had been an awful mess, really. Invisible people had a most annoying habit of being, well – invisible. Which made them considerably more difficult to identify and capture. Especially if the invisible person in question was a most inept amateur optics researcher who by some twisted fluke had managed to create a prism that refracted the light around the person holding it, and then proceeded to put his inadvertent creation to rather baffling uses. H.G. remembered thinking at the time that had she had a chance to become invisible practically at will, she could certainly conceive of better things to do than taking her pathetic revenge on more apt research colleagues and spying on a failed romantic interest.

Not that there had been instances in H.G.'s life when she'd have had the chance to experience failure in matters of romantic conquest, of course.

One useful consequence of the amateur researcher's discovery had been sparking the idea for 'The Invisible Man'. Though naturally the researcher in H.G.'s novella had been possessed of a far stronger personality than his real-life counterpart. She had also altered the details of the nature of the invisibility effect itself, for the sake of the plot. The real Prism – luckily, H.G. now thought – rendered both the user and their clothes invisible.

_Much more convenient in the course of robbery_, she thought sardonically, feeling the thick wad of cash in the other pocket of her black jeans.

She remembered everything. The bomb, the barrier, the explosion – the explosion that should have left a gaping crater in place of the Warehouse. Seeing as the Warehouse seemed to be perfectly fine, and she was very much – and very painfully – alive, one needn't even be blessed with the extraordinary brainpower of H.G. Wells to realise something didn't exactly add up. Nothing added up, in fact.

She had died. And now here she was. Calmly walking away from the gas station whose register she just cleaned out of cash.

She needed to know what happened. Being who she was, though, she couldn't exactly have walked up to Artie's bedroom, shaken him awake and inquired after the details of her miraculous resurrection. And considering the last contact she'd had with the Regents had been while they kept her consciousness permanently incarcerated away from her body – well, she was not about to give them a chance to do it again. It seemed the best course of action would be to stay hidden for the time being and try to find out what happened from a safe distance. She wasn't entirely sure how she would go about accomplishing the latter, but for now… she needed to lie down. Badly.

She had walked all the way from the Warehouse to Univille, which was quite a feat considering her body still felt as if it was about to fall apart at any given moment. In desperate need for some money, she'd approached the local gas station, which had the grace to be open at this ungodly hour. Still invisible, she'd entered the building, created a rather messy yet effective diversion, and proceeded to rapidly empty the cash register while the solitary employee rushed off to investigate what he had thought to be a can of coke that spontaneously took to flying off its shelf and smashing into the far corner of the room.

She didn't like stealing, but needs must.

_When the devil drives, _she thought with a grimace.

Rather relieved to be able to see her own body again, still aching but mercifully clothed, she walked up the main street in Univille. To the best of her knowledge, there was only one place apart from the B&B where one could rent a room in the small town. She therefore had no choice but to make the creatively named Univille Motel her next destination, now that she had the money to rent a room for the night.

Her mind was blank. There was no point trying to guess what bizarre chain of events could possibly have led to her waking up in the Warehouse in the middle of the night, supposedly right after she had watched it explode. From the _inside_. She could barely move, let alone think coherently. Tomorrow, she would figure out a way to find out what happened. Tomorrow, she would find all the answers without having to guess. Tomorrow, perhaps her mind would be clearer and back to its usual brilliance.

Perhaps tomorrow, she'd be able to close her eyes without seeing Myka's green ones gazing at her through the blinding light of the blast.


End file.
